After Meteor, Russian Politician Blames ... John Kerry

One of the conspiracy theories getting the most attention after yesterday's spectacular meteor show in Russia comes not from a basement blogger but from one of the nation's most well-known, if outlandish, politicians, reports the Voice of Russia. “Those were not meteorites, it was Americans testing their new weapons," said Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the nationalist Liberal Democrat Party. He asserts that new secretary of state John Kerry was sending a message to his Russian counterpart. “You’re like some primitive tribe. What meteorite?” he asked, recounts RT.com. “When something falls, it's man-made. People are warmongers and provocateurs.”

In the real world, meanwhile, workers were replacing windows today in about 4,000 buildings in Russia's frigid Chelyabinsk region. The flying glass after the shock wave injured some 1,200 people, and 15 remained hospitalized, one of them in a coma, reports AP. A regional governor pegged the damage at $33 million. Also, divers were exploring a lake in the town of Chebarkul after a 20-foot-wide hole opened in the ice, presumably from a meteor fragment. (More Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky stories.)